Police Arrest Student for Shooting a Fictional Dinosaur

August 22, 2014 by Jordan Richardson

Dinosaurs may be extinct, but absurdity in public schools isn’t.

Alex Stone is a 16 year-old student in Summerville High School in South Carolina. On the first day of class, his teacher asked the students to write a few sentences about themselves and then follow up with a statement in the form of a Facebook status. Alex decided to use this opportunity to make a joke, and wrote “I killed my neighbor’s pet dinosaur.” For the status part, he said he wrote: “I bought the gun to take care of the business.”

The teacher, seeing the words “gun” and “take care of business” immediately notified the police to investigate the death of the fictional dinosaur and see if the teen boy had indeed carried a weapon into school.

The police searched Alex’s locker and belongings, but did not discover any evidence that he brought a weapon into school. Apparently, the high-powered weapons needed to kill imaginary dinosaurs do not easily fit in school lockers.

Alex’s mother, Karen Gray, pointed out the irrationality of the incident: “I mean first of all we don’t have dinosaurs anymore. Second of all, he’s not even old enough to buy a gun.”

The Summerville police arrested him anyway and justified it by saying that he acted “irate” when they confronted him about the comment he wrote. According to Capt. Jon Rogers of the Summerville police, “[t]he charges do not stem from anything involving a dinosaur or writing assignment, but the student’s conduct.” Interesting. The police have added a First Amendment violation to whatever claims Alex already had.

As a result of the arrest, Alex was suspended from school for the rest of week.